COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[100% pro-life no matter what]

yawn.. covid smovid.

just live normally.. go to work.. take your trip Gmac.

Don't worry about covid. pretend you are not even infected!

"Go out, infect other people. Some will die. Covid smovid."

No one's really dying of covid anymore.  The winter Omicron wave was the last time covid was causing a statistically significant number of deaths.  It's never going to be literally zero due to the whole deaths from covid/deaths with covid thing, but recent waves haven't seen deaths increase at all from the trough.  So, yes, I unironically believe covid positive people should go about their lives unless they feel sick enough to be more comfortable staying at home.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I tested positive on June 30, and only had mild symptoms the whole time.

Still positive today

You'll be fine. You have extra immunity for the winter. Id rather get covid in summer than winter.

Also, STOP WORRYING ABOUT COVID.  you are making yourself SICK.

Relax and calm down

I’m not worried. I’m not sick anymore.

Just annoyed that aim still positive because my family is getting together this weekend for my dad’s birthday. If I’m not negative by then I can’t attend.

The CDC doesn't even recommend continuing to test this long after an infection.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I was at the Arch in St. Louis last weekend, and they had a giant sign out front declaring what that day's covid level was and whether you needed to wear masks.  Fortunately, it was "medium" last weekend, so masks weren't required.  We were lucky because I've heard they're strict, and they've been required all but two or three weeks since early June (and are now required again).

Meanwhile, here, we've been lowered from "high" to "medium", but I would have never known that the three "covid risk colors" even existed without the internet because I've never once heard someone in TN make mention of them.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

https://twitter.com/asosin/status/1554825979255832576?s=20&t=UE6ZBf8xaZatcR6...

https://twitter.com/mims/status/1553794492733554694?s=20&t=_M1dv1Jou-Ozuy3Eh...

Most of them are just hypochondriacs.

The fact that it almost always seems that liberals get sicker with covid proves it.

You've lost your mind and are getting as bad with this as the cons with election denial.  And the bold is patently false.

It might be true about "long covid" (which I suspect is largely psychosomatic).  Most people I know have had covid at least once (many twice), and the only "long covid" I know of anyone having is loss of smell (and that's confined to people who had it in 2020).

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Many school districts are reinstituting MASK mandates as the school year is about to start. Sad.

So are the national parks.

END THE NATIONAL PARK MASK MANDATE! BURN YOUR MASK! It is not a MASK it is a MUZZLE

Yes... BBUUURRRNNNN THEM ...

It's my birthday today and it would have been a great present if Biden announced a ban on mask mandates nation wide for my birthday .

I know Utah national parks are requiring masks sadly.

The airplane mask mandate got lifted on my birthday.  I believe the National Parks one is tied to the CDC level in the county.  I was super lucky that the weekend I went to Saint Louis (the Arch is actually a National Park) was during the one week since mid-June that St. Louis was in "yellow" instead of "red".

I actually think this Thursday's update is going to see a lot of red counties go down to yellow, with cases falling nationwide, so I wouldn't assume that places will stay that way.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Dude what I'm saying is the whole field moved. We don't have herd immunity. That's just a fact. People are getting sick all the time. Who cares if 70% immunity in 2020 would have eradicated the virus? I'm telling you why we don't have herd immunity at 95%. The immunity people have to measles is stronger too.

With the original virus, there were two competing strategies- herd immunity and elimination.  The big issue was that a lot of the world went with the worst of both worlds.  The other thing is that the vaccine was actually incredibly good at stopping transmission of the original virus.

The initial success of the vaccine allowed herd immunity to again become a viable goal in 2021.  By the beginning of summer, a combination of vaccine-derived and natural immunity got cases down to next to nothing, and we were probably on track for herd immunity-derived elimination.

However, then the Delta variant arrived in late June/early July 2021.  At first, the focus was on the increased transmissability, but the bigger factor was that it could penetrate vaccine-derived immunity.  Had it simply been more contagious, it would have just been a brief bump as we waited for a new herd immunity level, but that wasn't the main factor.  I strongly suspect I might have had Delta in late August 2021 after avoiding it for close to a year and a half.

Then, Omicron came along in December 2021, which was both incredibly contagious and could evade both types of immunity.  Given the relative mildness of the infection, the vast majority of places allowed it to just rip through the population.  A few weeks later, Omicron peaked and then began the most rapid fall in cases we saw at any point during covid.  This was a manifestation of herd immunity because most people had Omicron (many probably mildly enough that they never knew).  By late March, for the second time, cases were approaching nothing.  The only reason it didn't last was that natural immunity from the Omicron variant isn't long lasting and neutralizing.

On the other hand, we have really reached the end game because, while no one is completely immune (with the possible exception of people who just recovered), virtually everyone is partially immune.  We were twice approaching actual herd immunity- once in June 2021 and once in March/April 2022- but things changed.  Still, we have reached what appears to be a long lasting effective herd immunity.  A combination of a weakened virus with partial immunity for most of us has lead to positive tests being just that- without any of the more serious consequences.

All of this tells us that the "SARS-COV-2" virus will never be eradicated, but it is also completely disingenuous to say that we are currently in a pandemic.  I still think a strategy of getting herd immunity through never leaving full normalcy in 2020 could have worked and eventually eradicated the virus, as could have super draconian lockdowns in February 2020 (before the virus took hold).  Neither of those were tried, and we got a bit of bad luck with a new variant barely beating herd immunity in mid-2021.  If we all tested ourselves forever, we'd probably all test positive for covid a couple times a year, but it's now just one of many cold and flu viruses that always have existed in the background (and unfortunately have always killed a statistically small number of people).  That's just a different form of herd immunity.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Here is a possible reason for the high hospitalization and death rates during the worst of the pandemic:

More than 40% of Americans lied about COVID-19 risk during pandemic, study shows

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 40% of Americans were untruthful about whether they had the virus or were ignoring safety precautions, a nationwide survey shows.

The December survey of 1,700 people found 721 respondents had either misrepresented their COVID-19 status or failed to follow public health recommendations.

Folks ignored quarantine rules, told someone they were about to see that they had been taking more precautions than they actually were, and didn't mention they might or did have COVID-19 when they entered a doctor's office. They were also untruthful about vaccination status, claiming they were vaccinated when they weren't or that they were unvaccinated when they had taken the jab, the survey revealed.

The most common reasons for the lack of transparency were that people wanted to feel normal or to exercise personal freedom.

It depends on what you mean by "ignored quarantine rules".  Like, when the recommendation was to quarantine 14 days after an exposure, that technically wasn't impacted even if you tested negative after a certain amount of time.

An example is, in late October 2020, I sat next to someone at church who had covid (neither of us were wearing masks).  I found out a few hours later because he was (unknown to me) waiting on his test results.  I completely  quarantined and got a test on Day 5.  On Day 8, I received word that my test was negative.  I actually did stay home (except for picking up food) until Day 12.  At that point (with no symptoms at all and a negative test), I ultimately decided that I was far more certain that I didn't have covid that day than I would have been on any other normal day and went back to normal life.  Technically, I was like 2.5 days early, but now I actually think it's laughable I was so conservative to stay home at all after getting a negative test (with enough time for it to theoretically show a positive test).

[100% pro-life no matter what]

It seems like the flu might be "winning" the battle of viral interference this year.  The last two years, the flu was virtually non-existent (even in areas without covid restrictions and where masks were rare).  A popularized theory was the idea of "viral interference", where one highly contagious respiratory virus could crowd out another one.  This year, it seems like the reverse might be true.  The flu- which virtually no Americans have had in nearly three years- is spiking.  Covid cases are not increasing, and are way lower than in previous years.  In Tennessee, syndromic surveillance says that ILI (influenza-like illness) is three times as high as CLI (coronavirus-like illness).  At no point since early 2020 has ILI even been above CLI, except for a few weeks in the spring of 2022 when they were both virtually non-existent.

I don't think it's likely we get a major winter covid wave this year.  But, of course, the flu isn't really any less severe than the Omicron variant of covid.  And, we appear to be getting an early and severe flu season.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The United States is moving from "zero COVID" to "zero flu." Now some venues are enacting mask mandates solely because of the flu, not COVID.

This is proof that lockdowns and masks were intended all along to be permanent.

I haven't heard of this practice.  Do you have some examples (in the US)?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Does this megathread still need to be pinned?  There hasn't been much new on the COVID front in months and the thread title is from 2021.

Let's wait until after this winter, and when the World Health Organization officially declares the COVID pandemic over.  Deaths and hospitalizations from COVID are rising again, after all.  

I'm not convinced that the WHO will ever officially declare the pandemic "over".  After all, they still technically say we are living in an ongoing AIDS pandemic.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

U. S. House of Representatives votes to kill CDC Vaccine Mandate for Foreign Travellers. Probably good News for World Class Athletes like Novak Djokovic
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1623457028403347457

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-votes-kill-cdcs-vax-requirement-foreign-travelers-entering-us

The US is one of the only countries in the world that still has this policy.  In most countries, it's not even a partisan debate anymore.  Interestingly, all of Nevada's Democrats were among the seven Democrats to vote for it.  I wonder if the tourism industry led to that.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

After over three years, the covid megathread is no longer pinned to the top.  It's the end of an era.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Why do people care whether their cold is covid or something else?  I had a cold two weeks ago.  I felt bad for two and a half days, and then it went away.  Was it covid?  Maybe, maybe not, and I don't really care one way or the other.  It's mutated to the point where it's just one of many colds out there.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

You didn't even test?

If you're talking to me, the last time I took a covid test was right before Christmas 2020.  I tried to test using an early version at-home test once when sick in the summer of 2021, but I messed up the directions and just tested their detection fluid.